Vietnam is a coastal country of a long history of maritime trade, which includes a shipping fleet of 1.840 ships with a total deadweight of 7.3 million DWT. This shipping fleet has been transporting about 90% of domestic sea cargo volume. Taking advantage of participating in the ASEAN community presents the shipping industry with a number of key challenges. These include unbalanced fleet proportions, which makes maximizing the shipping space available problematic; limited financial and managerial competences as well as outdated and inadequate infrastructure. The aim of this paper is to examine the Vietnam shipping industry and consider possible changes in policy led factors to facilitate the country's full participation in the ASEAN integration.